Human rights official, son killed in northern Mexico

MEXICO CITY – Gunmen in Mexico have killed a human rights official and his son in the northern state of Baja California Sur in a dramatic attack that was condemned by federal officials Tuesday.

In a news conference, state officials said Silvestre de la Toba Camacho and his family were driving in an SUV in a busy part of the state capital of La Paz around 7 p.m. Monday when gunmen in another vehicle opened fire.

De la Toba Camacho, 47, and his son Fernando de la Toba Lucero, 20, died at the scene. De la Toba Camacho's wife and 17-year-old daughter were wounded and taken to a nearby hospital.

Mexico's Interior Ministry condemned the attack Tuesday and called on state officials to find those responsible.

Luis Raul Gonzalez Perez, president of the National Human Rights Commission, also called on the government to provide security to the surviving relatives and staff of the rights commission in Baja California Sur, which has seen an increase in violence as drug cartels battle for control over territory.

Meanwhile in Mexico state, investigators said that an executive from media conglomerate Grupo Televisa, who was killed while riding his bike outside Mexico City on Sunday, was actually struck by a bullet fired by one of his bodyguards.

In a statement late Monday night, the state prosecutors' office said that two men approached Adolfo Lagos, chief of Grupo Televisa's internet and telephone arm Izzi, and one other person while they were bike riding along a road. One of the men pulled out a pistol in an attempted robbery, but Lagos' bodyguards fired a number of shots from an SUV that was trailing behind the cyclists.

The prosecutors' office said that ballistic testing and a crime scene investigation concluded that one of the bullets struck Lagos.